Chicken-Spinach-Artichoke-Mushroom Lasagna

This is a catch-up post from Wednesday – it’s been a hectic week. I can’t tell where this recipe came from based on the card – Cooking Club of America, maybe? At any rate, I’ve lightened it up considerably here. The original sauce has 2 cups EACH of whole milk and cream. First of all, I’m not buying special milk and cream for one dish, and second of all, HOLY COW THAT’S A LOT OF HEAVY CREAM. So I swapped the 2 cups of cream out for a combination of the liquid I’d normally squeeze out of the frozen spinach and some homemade chicken broth from the freezer. Don’t worry, though, I made up for it by adding what was probably a lot of extra cheese.

Lasagna:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tsp dried oregano

1 lb boneless skinless chicken (breasts or thighs are fine)

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped

8 oz crimini or baby bella* mushrooms, sliced thin

1 box no-boil lasagna noodles**

3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Heat oil, saute onion. Add mushrooms, cook until soft and starting to brown. Add garlic, oregano, artichokes, and chicken. Cook until chicken is just cooked through, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Sauce:

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

1/2 cup flour

2 cups milk (any kind)

about 1/2 cup chicken broth (water or more milk would probably work fine too)

2 boxes frozen spinach, thawed BUT NOT DRAINED/SQUEEZED

salt, pepper, nutmeg

This is basically a cross between creamed spinach and a bechamel. (The original recipe had the spinach as a separate layer and the liquid discarded – I think this way tastes better.) Melt the butter, add flour and make a blond roux (should be very bubbly and slightly paler than peanut butter). Slowly add milk, whisking constantly. Bring to a boil and let simmer 2-3 minutes to thicken. Add thawed spinach, whisk until smooth***. Add additional liquid if necessary (it should be…saucy), season to taste with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a 9×13 casserole with cooking spray.

Layer as follows: Sauce, noodles, chicken mixture, cheeses. Repeat until you are out of noodles, topping with a final layer of sauce and cheese. Bake about 45-60 minutes or until golden browned and bubbly on top. This is even better if you assemble it in advance and give the noodles extra time to soak up the sauce.

*crimini and “baby bella” are the same kind of mushroom

**original recipe calls for 12 noodles from a 9 oz box, which will leave you with 3 or 4 extra uncooked lasagna noodles. TO HELL WITH THAT. JUST USE THE WHOLE BOX. GO CRAZY.

***If you have one of these, spinach will not get caught in your whisk AND you can get the flour out of the corners of your saucepan. Seriously, they’re awesome. If you don’t have a ball whisk, you may want to switch to a wooden spoon before you add the spinach.

No picture on account of my iPhoto library has something wrong with it, but Dylan loved this even as he avoided eating any chicken.